It was the smell of burning buildings that finally caught Wren's attention.
She had bunkered down in the top of a tall tree and wept her anguish until she fell into sleep. The day she spent in the welcoming quiet of the forest, scavenging food and avoiding or killing walkers she came across. The next night she returned to her tree, but now she could feel the pain and fury receding a little and questions started to grow. How could he do this? Why? Wren knew she was damaged, she knew that she was fucked up but Merle had always assured her that to him she was perfect. Had he been lying this whole time? Or was it something she couldn't or wasn't giving him? Then the rage would swell back and she would picture herself stabbing him in his remaining hand to show him the pain he had poured into her shattered heart.
It was late that second day when she smelt the smoke. Scaling the tree right up to the top, hanging on like a demented monkey to the swaying limbs, she saw with a spike of terror that the Settlement she had run from, where so many people had been having a party, was covered in a thick layer of black smoke.
From her position so high up, she could see the commotion had drawn walkers from far and wide and she cursed herself for being so far into her head that she hadn't heard anything.
It took her hours to make it back to The Kingdom. So many walkers made it difficult to even move in the trees and Wren resorted to bathing in walker guts after she endured one attack too many.
Finally reaching the gates, she was horrified to see a cobbled together monstrosity that was the remains of a once nearly impenetrable entrance. Walkers pressed to her on all sides, the terror warring with relief as the dangerous contact smeared more covering camouflage on the tiny woman.
The herds were 10 deep around the walls and stretched as far as Wren could see along the fortified walls of The Kingdom. High above on the walls, Wren could see people stabbing down with the long poles in the parts where the herds were too thick and she knew she would have to avoid those if she didn't want to end up a causality.
Slowly squeezing herself through the rotting cesspools around her, she finally made it to the boarded up gates and stared through, trying to see anyone she knew.
It took an age before she saw Rick stride past, battered and bruised and covered in blood but very much alive. She prayed silently in her mind for the Leader of the Prison to look over, to SEE her but he was focused on his duties and was pointing people here and there.
Desperately, Wren looked up and biting her lip and clenching every single atom of her courage and recklessness to her very soul, she sprang into action.
It only took the dead around her milliseconds to realise she was food, but by then Wren was halfway up the gate. Clawing hands caught her legs and yanked her, the only thing preventing her fall and devouring was the terror strengthened grip she had to the boards above her. More and more hands caught her flailing legs and with a sudden heartstopping realization, she knew that this was where she was going to die.
As the board she clung to finally snapped, she felt her body drop and she screamed, but the sudden slamming stop cut off the scream as well as her fall. Hands above her roughly hauled her up and over the wall, heedless of the scrapes and scratches they caused as she gained in her rescue.
Thrown from the top of the wall, Wren landed hard on the ground below, the jarring fall making her split lip and black eye from her last face-meet-ground session throb painfully. A foot on her back pressed her down into the dirt as the person above hollered for Ezekiel.
It was a furious Rick who shoved the guy off Wren and hauled her up into a breath stealing hug, ignoring the filth covering her. Wren could hear someone shouting for Michonne and moments later another body slammed into them as the woman joined in the fierce embrace.
Just as Wren was starting to feel panicky, Rick let her go and head her out at arm's length. The tears on his face startled Wren. At her look of surprise, Rick shook his head, the smiling joy turning to a mix of anger and relief. MIchonne had other ideas though. She turned Wren to face her, scanned the missing woman from head to toe, hauled her in for another hug, then smacked the back of Wren's head hard.
Rubbing her stinging scalp, Wren glared at the black woman and pointed silently with her chin at the destruction around them.
Rick's face immediately blanked and Michonne murmured softly under her breath. Wren's breath caught and she could feel her eyes widening. Feeling her breath stutter, she looked around warily then more and more worried as she didn't see the two faces she was searching for.
She figured Merle would avoid her after what had happened, but with the attack, she though that he would at least appear to see if she was alive. But she thought Daryl would have shown for sure.
Raising her voice and squaring her shoulders, she croaked out the question that meant life or death to her. Literally.
"Who died?"
Both Rick and Michonne both knew who she was referring to, so didn't bother listing any of the other dead. Rick stepped close and grasped Wren's shoulders.
"They're alive Wren. They're alive!" Wren felt the relief zap through her and she beamed up at the former Sheriff. Rick blinked in shock. He had so rarely seen her smile like that and never at him. Fearfully he glanced at Michonne who nodded her support and stepped close to the surprisingly fragile woman.
"But we were attacked by a group called The Saviours. Their leader is a man called Negan and he made a few … demands. In return for his 'protection', we have to give him our supplies." Wren blinked up in shock. A Protection racket in the Apocalypse?
Knowing the worse was to come, she grabbed Rick's shirt in both foul crusted hands, using him to keep upright as she waited for the sword to fall.
With a bracing breath, Rick looked over her shoulder to his partner.
"Wren. They took some of our people as hostages."
There. Right there she knew. This Negan bloke had taken her men, her family. Feeling the hands of her friends around her, supporting her, she surprised them by staring up into the eyes of one of the few people she trusted in this world.
"When do we take them back?"
Well, that had caused a furious argument. Rick had talked something about gathering strength, healing and planning and a lot of bullshit that Wren refused to listen to. If the words "we roll out to get them back in one hour" didn't roll off those lips, then nothing was worth hearing.
People who had only ever seen the almost mute woman as a poor waif of a child, clinging to the protection of her big strong protector men, suddenly received a whole new picture. Those that had mocked the others for their telling of the attack at the party now realised that maybe their friends hadn't been exaggerating.
The fury that held the small being taut was almost visible in its intensity, her raw hoarse voice loud for once as she screamed her rage at the exhausted leaders. It was Michonne standing in front of Rick with her katana raised that was the only reason Wren didn't attack him with her waving blades.
Bent forward from the sheer force of her scream of defiant rage, Wren finally fell to hands and knees on the ground and wept into the dirt. When kind hands tried to help her rise, she shook them off and clambered up herself.
"Fuck you Rick. Fuck you all."
And she disappeared into the depths of The Kingdom and Rick knew in that moment, he had lost all that he had gained with her over the past 19 months of life at the prison.
When they couldn't find Wren later that day, they didn't worry too much. Wren could look after herself, despite what most people thought. When they couldn't find her the next day as the Prison group made to roll out home, they worried.
Right up until Maggie came running up with a note she had found stabbed to her back door.
Rick,
I have to go. You know this. Don't look for me. I'll find you.
W
And Michonne held her lover as he wept in privacy.
